First I want to make absolutely clear: I don't *dislike* anyone of the EC community who is using *Social Media*. EC as a community only gathers positive human beings in my view and from my experience. I also want to point out, that the basic idea of *Social Media* is of course a positive one. There can't be something wrong with people coming together..but...

I think Hal came close when he wrote that it depends on one's age how one regards *Social Media*. For human beings now growing up, it is normal that people are beaten up just because they are non-white or non-heterosexual. Not *ok* (I hope) but *normal*. In Europe it was not *normal* some years ago - now it is, it happens every day - it is in the norm - it is *normal*.

Regarding *Social Media* and your age, there are sure exceptions. I see 70 year old smart phone addicts in the streets - for example, and I see 20 years old people with NO smart phone in hand. I didn't grow up with it, so I see it with a (what I think) healthy distance.

In the mid 1990s I studied multimedia in all forms, HTML, website construction, soundcreation, grafix, video, etc. With this knowledge I spent inspiring years of freelancing. The internet was in its very early days in Europe. It was an inspiring area and one could even make a very decent income. It was quite normal that one who was on the internet was learning new things, understood structures, got inspired and creative. One was automatically a creator not a consumer.

I started using the internet to spread alternative culture. A first internet radiostation that webcasted my show regularly was Indieport.com (long forgotten). In the end I had four shows. Two online, two on air. One of the shows was a weekly show that was webcasted daily. In the beginning I sent the shows on CD-R via snail mail. No way of sending big files via the net in those days. I had an early website with all kind of alternative information, links, reviews, articles, etc. Electronic communication started and all was innovative and inspiring.

A worldwide level of communication, experiment, creativity - it was called *The global village*. In those years I definitely experienced the attitude and *flair* I knew from the cassette scene in/on the internet. The whole internet was a *Social Media* like area. It was easy for me to go from *cassette culture* to *internet culture*.

Slowly something else took over. I started teaching how to use the internet A new expression was *blooming*: e-commerce. I made quite some money teaching this to companies in Berlin. And more and more the *making money* aspect took over. The world was realising how much money was to be made with these millions of people that suddenly were on the internet.

Slowly the internet turned into a money making tool. FB and the whole *Social Media* idea came alive in the early 2000s. Right from the start there was just one idea - create as many clicks as possible, this generates the profit. Yeah - this was the savior of those days: generating clicks! I remember this was a main aspect of my lectures - your website has to generate clicks - this will guarantee profit.

This never changed and the whole internet today is slave to this rule.

C U T .................

I remember an early Electronic Cottage info where Hal defines that NO hate, homophobia etc etc etc .. is welcomed at EC. - no such obvious call is known from FB (and the general *Social Media*) from the early days. So everybody was welcomed.

I repeat again - clicks should be generated, clicks would guarantee companies placing advertisement. After a slow start the amount of money involved in this process became *scary*.

People as human beings became irrelevant, they became units generating clicks.

Ever since groups that so far had no worldwide *mouth*, started using *Social Media* to come together on a worldwide level and began to spread Death, Destruction, Hate, Lies, Racism, Fascism, Homophobia ... no one stopped them. Especially not the owners of *Social Media*, every click meant profit. Whether a peace loving hippie or a hate spreading Nazi. *Social Media* embraces and unites them all.

Today - whether Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, etc etc, if you look behind it's all Zuckerberg - it's all there to generate clicks. He makes that much money that he can put billions aside *just in case* he needs them for being sued - billions.

I painfully began to realise that every human being, who is not white and heterosexual, is now in danger in Germany and in general in the modern society. After decades of coming together (after the Second World War), we're again drifting apart because all negative hatemongers found a platform to come together worldwide.

And I'm shocked and sad that all my non-white and non-hetero friends are back in a greater danger than they were when I started this life .. a part of the background is, because *Social Media* found a total uncontrolled playground on Planet Earth.

I really think we have to start to react - offer different ways, work on alternatives, start to shout, cry, and don't stop until a different movement is noticeable.

Especially being part of *Social Media* makes us part of the mainstream of today. We feed and support today's mainstream. I once entered the *alternative underground* to get away from the mainstream and its devastating effect on culture to offer a counterweight. A very *clever* move made the *new* mainstream catch all *alternative* people in recent years.

And again the mainstream teaches us how to think, look, walk, talk etc. ..

The time to offer a *adjusted counterweight* is now. All over the world I see gentle small plantlets whispering *no* ... I'm one of those old trees, so I cry. NO!!!

So again I repeat: *Social Media* (the way it is now) = Death, Destruction, Hate, Lies, Racism, Fascism, Homophobia

A fact is that I'm definitely not the only one warning against this. One example. The inventor of the Like button, after realising what he has done, feels very guilty for inventing this tool of addiction, which was right from the start planned as a tool, of addiction...and that's really only one example.

Too many people worldwide just live for this *feedback call* of *Social Media*. As soon as the bell rings they jump to the device and put their dose into the system, which sends the call to other people .. and so on.

Sure there are also positive movements supported by *Social Media* - everyone who is not white and heterosexual found a mouth to say: "Here we are and we are *normal*". But what price have we paid to support endless greed and profit...plus many of these *mouths* were there long before *Social Media* .. like Christoper Street Day.

What a chance we missed that the basic idea of *Social Media* was not used on pro-life movements..

And now please don't tell me, well - that is just the way it is, the way it always has been, business as usual - this is cynical and supports Death, Destruction, Hate, Lies, Racism, Fascism, Homophobia.

All this is just the beginning, if we don't oppose to a algorithm ruled world. I just received a first example of what will happen now, that we have a new Europe copyright law, controlled by algorithm, and of course a first *victim* I heard of is a good old buddy from the cassette culture days - and of course it happens via a *Social Media* platform. I'll try to research this and I'm planning another article on this.

PS: I barely *touched* the whole subject - I didn't even mention the expression *fake news* which is all a result and heavily supported by *Social Media*. And I didn't talk about GOOGLE - a whole planet led to search results by one company. This is horrible and terrifying - to say the least ... but it's *normal* to everyone.

​The Electronic Cottage website is primarily an online magazine for the publication of lengthy and in-depth articles, essays, and interviews.For those of you who use Facebook I have created an Electronic Cottage Group, which is a casual social gathering place of the EC Community, where EC people can meet, share artwork and news of current projects and releases.The website and this EC Facebook Group are two separate but connected entities of the greater EC Community.